Q&A with Jörg Boner, designer of the Moving Walls System

What does mobility mean to you in the context of the office?We will move more in the office in the future. There will probably always be the workstation, at which will work seated down. However, we have noted in our own studio, that the quality of work improves noticeably, when we move around, when we change situations physically. Especially in the interaction with other people movement also means a constant change of the position. This has an impact on the interaction between the people. And finally on the quality of work. A room with 20 people seated around a table is something completely different to a room with 20 people who move around whilst developing something together or solving problems together. However, what it doesn’t mean, is that they walk around the table. Rather, it is the possibility to build teams, whose composition can also change. These teams than for example, work together at a Moving Wall. This way, a completely new way of interaction is possible, as the Moving Wall represents a public surface, in contrast to a desk’s surface of a seated person.

What is your vision of the office of the future? What will change in the future in the design of offices?I believe that the horizontal surfaces will be become smaller and the vertical surfaces bigger. The horizontal surface is the private surface. It is something like landownership. The vertical surface on the other hand is public. Around it, you can build a plenum. An interaction takes places. In the past, the architecture of buildings has offered many horizontal surfaces. What is meant by it are room walls, on which you could hang texts, drawings, sketchs or screens. Today, with the economization of construction, vertical surfaces, meaning room dividers or walls are being renounced. Even the outside walls, as part of the facade, are often realised in glass and are thus unusable as vertical surfaces for work. Moving Walls works on solutions for this new situations.

What are the characteristic feature of the new office tools, that you have designed for Moving Walls?The basis of all products for Moving Walls is collaborative work. All products are focussed on the joint development, research and work on completely different topics. With the new additions we are connecting the private work space with the public work space. The small panel, which hangs for example in the individual office, can in an instant be carried into a public situation, such as a row of Moving Walls. There it works as a starting point for the work on one topic in a bigger team.

Do you see parallels between the bag label QWSTION and Moving Walls? Will there be joint projects?

The special exhibition at Neue Räume 2017 is the first joint project. I personally see many parallels between Qwstion and Moving Walls. Both are relatively young companies. Both labels are born into time, meaning they do not have to adapt to new conditions, to all the changes in retail, production etc. They live with this situation, do not know anything but the current situation and our challenges of today. This is something that connects them and a big plus point in comparison to established companies with old structures, who have now got to convert everything. Both labels are characterised by an huge dynamic.

As a designer, your product spectrum is versatile, from everyday objects, furniture, lighting to the Moving Walls tools for collaboration. What is one of the most important aspects for you when designing a product?

This is true, the spectrum of end results of my work is very versatile. But the connecting factor however is one of the most important aspects of my work. I am interested in the grasping of a task. Everyone of my products exists in very different environments, which in parts, are not at all connected. These environments, the context of a product, getting to know its conditions, understanding the problems and the solvable tasks, this is what fascinates me time and again. Every product exists in its own world. These very different worlds, this is what really fascinates me.